Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving, Locally

Yesterday, my family was invited to spend the holiday with friends in Virginia. Over the years, we've become more like family to each other than we ever would have expected.

But today, we had our own Thanksgiving feast at home. Following our tradition of the past few years, we divided the meal into parts. Often we have turkey, dressing, and veggies for lunch and then later have soup and salad and dessert at supper. But this year we did things a little differently.

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At lunch, we made soup cooked in a pumpkin:

It is a great, flexible recipe that I think we'll try again next time we pick up a little pumpkin at the market. After cleaning out the inside, fill the body with chopped onions, a few chunks of bread (we used a locally produced whole wheat bread), some strong-flavored cheese, some milk, a little horseradish (we bought a jar at the farmer's market during Passover and it is still good), and a bit of mustard (alas, non local). Let it bake in the oven on a cookie sheet for a couple of hours, and serve with scoops of the softened pumpkin in the soup. Sprinkle with roasted pumpkin seeds.

* * *

I spent the afternoon asleep while David cooked a beautiful turkey with dressing. We bought the turkey from our Amish dairy provider. The stuffing was made with the above-mentioned bread, red onions and shallots and kale from the market, local butter, and homemade chicken stock from an earlier bird. Absolutely delicious!

We served it with sides of smooshed rutabaga and roasted Brussels sprouts.

* * *

We opened a bottle of cassis aperitif which we bought when we were in Quebec City. It is a perfect dessert wine all by itself...

...but we followed it up with a crustless sweet potato pie, served with whipped cream sweetened with local maple sugar. Wow.

* * *

Our non-local ingredients were going to be only salt and pepper--but we each made a goof. David put a bit of leftover champagne in the dressing, and I put a sprinkle of flour and a squeeze of lemon in the gravy without thinking about it. But still--since this is our first local Thanksgiving and a very quickly-planned fiesta, we followed our rules pretty well. And it was an incredible dinner.

And thank goodness it was good. We have lots of leftovers in the fridge!